Spanish prepositions

Prepositions in the Spanish language, like those in other languages, are a set of connecting words (such as con, de or para) that serve to indicate a relationship between a content word (noun, verb, or adjective) and a following noun phrase (or noun, or pronoun), which is known as the object of the preposition. The relationship is typically spatial or temporal, but prepositions express other relationships as well. As implied by the name, Spanish "prepositions" (like those of English) are positioned before their objects. Spanish does not place these function words after their objects, which would be postpositions.

Spanish prepositions can be classified as either "simple", consisting of a single word, or "compound", consisting of two or three words. The prepositions of Spanish form a closed class and so they are a limited set to which new items are rarely added. Many Spanish school pupils memorize the following list: a, ante, bajo, cabe, con, contra, de, desde, durante, en, entre, hacia, hasta, mediante, para, por, según, sin, so, sobre, and tras. The list includes two archaic prepositions — so (“under”) and cabe (“beside”), and it excludes vía (“by way of, via”) and pro (“in favor of”), two Latinisms that have been recently adopted into the language.

Some common Spanish prepositions, simple and compound, are listed below with their meanings.